The time-honored way of showing love in an Italian family is to offer food. Whether we're celebrating, mourning, happy, sad--if we're breathing, there's a table filled with great things to eat. Life's too short, so eat what you love and love what you eat.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Triple Chocolate Buttermilk Pound Cake

If I needed proof that you eat with your eyes first, the cover shot of Southern Living magazine with this gorgeous pound cake gave it to me in spades.

Preparation

1. Prepare Cake: Preheat oven to 325°. Whisk together flour and next 3 ingredients. Beat 1 1/2 cups butter in a medium bowl at medium-high speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Gradually add granulated sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until yolk disappears. Combine 1 1/4 cups buttermilk and next 2 ingredients. Add flour mixture to egg mixture alternately with buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed after each addition. Fold in bittersweet chocolate morsels. Pour batter into a well-greased (with shortening) and floured 12-cup Bundt pan. Sharply tap pan on counter to remove air bubbles.

2. Bake at 325° for 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 25 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack 20 minutes. Remove from pan; cool completely on rack.

4. Prepare Buttermilk Glaze: Whisk together powdered sugar, 1 Tbsp. buttermilk, and 1/4 tsp. vanilla in a small bowl until smooth. Add up to 1 Tbsp. buttermilk, if desired.

Drizzle glazes, one at a time, over warm cake. Makes 10-12 servings.

**************************TASTE NOTES
This is one of those OMG desserts. I love pound cake, mostly because it is so dense. This cake, while still a bit warm, reminds me of lava cake. A small slice is all you want--and a good thing since it is a whopping 20 WW points (roughly 800 calories) a slice. The glazes take no time at all to make and the trickiest part of the cake is making certain to generously grease the bundt pan with shortening, then flour as generously. The first cake (above) came out after I ran a knife around the edge and worried it out. The second cake (below) was much harder to get out and almost ended up on the floor. I'm due to buy a new bundt pan which I'm hoping will resolve the problem, but do be sure to grease and flour and let the cake cool thoroughly.

I made this cake for company and had half a slice. I'm grateful that I'm lactose intolerant because otherwise I'd probably have finished the rest instead of sending it home with them.